Aiming to build collective power in an age of financial absolutism, the Debt Collective is piloting a new kind of organization: the debtors’ union.

From Ferguson to Greece, debt is about power and subordination as much as it is about repayment at a profit.

Financial markets are political. Stock markets, bond markets and derivatives markets do not merely (or even primarily) raise capital for goods and services. Rather, they all have direct and often harmful effects on people’s everyday lives.

Our public universities issue bonds to cover the shortfall from tax cuts and, in turn, use ever-rising tuition dollars as collateral. Our mortgage, car and credit card payments are all securitized into short-term, lucrative investments for banks and investors, while for us they are shelter, food, and merely getting by. The municipal bond and sovereign debt markets have had plainly disastrous effects from Detroit to Puerto Rico to Greece—but for some they have been spectacularly profitable.

If financial markets are political, how can we contest them and their effects? What does civil disobedience and collective power look like in the age of finance? The Debt Collective is attempting to answer that question by piloting a new kind of organization: a debtors’ union.

For-profit schools are notorious for running afoul of the law. Corinthian Colleges Inc., once the nation’s largest for-profit educational chain, was no exception. The company has been accused of fraud and predatory lending by everyone from Attorneys General to the CFPB, gaming the federal student loan system to the tune of $1.4 billion in federal grant and loan dollars in 2010 alone, more than the ten University of California campuses combined for that same year.

As Corinthian’s many scandals grew increasingly public in the summer of 2014, a small group of former students had already begun to organize. Collaborating with these students, and enrolling technology experts and lawyers daring enough to take us seriously, we began to work closely with a group of 15 former Corinthian students who were ready to publicly declare their refusal to make any more payments on their federal student loans.